


Dye Another Day

by wordbending



Series: Her Universe [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Trans Female Character, crying singing and hair dye, featuring all the su ingredients
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: "Uhh... I just didn't realize humans could come with pink hair.""They don't! You gotta go to the store and get this goo. It smells really bad, and it turns your hair whatever color you want!"Steven tries a new look.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic takes place before and after [Her Universe](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6489301) (though reading that's not required to understand this). Steven is a trans woman in this fic, though she hasn't identified as one yet in the first two parts (so he pronouns are used).
> 
> That also means it unofficially takes place in the same AU as [nagginggargoyle's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nagginggargoyle/pseuds/nagginggargoyle) series [equilibrium](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5163491)!

Steven was having one of those overwhelmed-by-choices kind of days. He seemed to getting a lot more of those than usual lately - just not usually at convenience stores.

He walked down the shelves, looking at the product names - _crystal clear, ruby red, sparkling amber, pure diamond..._ he quickly walked past _pink rose,_ which wasn't even that nice of a shade of pink... _platinum blonde, violet gem, crushed garnet, aquamarine..._ wait, he thought, crushed garnet?! That was awful! Why were most of these named after gems?!

"Hey, sport," said Greg's voice, rustling Steven's hair. Steven giggled, playfully batting his hands away. "How's it going?"

"Badly," Steven groaned, running his hands down his face. "I can't choooooooose..."

"Well, let's see," Greg replied, leaning over and squinting at the boxes. He made a "yikes" under his breath at _crushed garnet_ before picking up a box of _gunmetal gray._ "I remember the first time I dyed my hair, I went with something like this. Although I think they called it _starbright silver_ back then..."

Steven looked at it curiously _,_ the plain gray box next to the small army of winking, smiling, dancing women with hair in an dazzling array of colors.

"You just liked the name, huh?" Steven teased, grinning at him.

"Oh, ha, ha!" said Greg, grinning right back.

Then his face fell.

"...Maybe."

* * *

 

"Now, I'm no pro at this," Greg admitted, as he crouched behind Steven, who was wrapped in a towel, sitting in a pile of newspapers and kicking his feet over the edge of the van. "But, if you don't like it, we could always take you through the car wa-"

Steven's shoulders hunched.

"Sorry, sorry!" Greg said, raising his gloved hands. "Bad joke... but anyway, you sure about this?"

Steven wasn't. He was about as far from sure as he could possibly be.

"Yeah," said Steven. "It'll be fine!"

"Well, alright." Steven heard a soft splash behind him, and then he felt something very slimy and wet being shoved against his head. That was more than enough for him to make a face, but then it started to move and he felt... were those bristles? He started to turn around.

"Whoa, whoa, don't move!" Greg said. Steven froze. "Not unless you want the rest of you to be all 'gunmetal gray' too!"

"OK, but why are you using a paintbrush?"

Greg laughed. "It's not a paintbrush, bud. Well, OK, I guess it is, technically... look, I'm just following the instructions. You're gonna have to trust me on this one."

"Alright... I trust you, Dad."

"There we go!"

And he felt the brush in his hair again.

"Let's see, small talk, small talk..." Greg muttered, while Steven resisted the urge to shiver at the feeling of the dye - it was super gross. "Uh, how's the magic stuff going? Any more exciting missions I should know about?"

It took all of Steven's effort not to shrug.

"Not really," he said. "It's been kind of boring."

"Well, no offense, but I'll take 'boring' over 'dangerous' any day."

Steven breathed a sigh of relief when Greg took the brush away. He sniffed - he was already starting to smell something pungent, and it wasn't the smell of detergent mixed with gasoline that usually came with the car wash.

"You're starting to sound like Peeeeearl," he said, sing-song. He wanted really badly to turn around and grin, but he'd been told not to move, so he stayed put - this was the same reason he didn't like going to the barbers. You just couldn't tell a joke to somebody without a smile!

"Ah," Greg replied. Steven heard him dip the brush into the dye again, then nearly flinched at the wet squelch of him putting it back in his hair. "Must be my maternal instinct."

"Dadddddd."

"Oh, sorry." Greg paused for emphasis. Steven could practically hear the grin. "Paternal instinct."

Steven laughed quietly. Of course.

"They haven't been letting me go on any missions lately," he said. He'd meant it as an explanation, but he started to frown anyway, so he looked out the back of the van, towards the beach. It was late, approaching sunset, and that usually helped him relax. "Pearl says it's too dangerous."

"Well, that's _something_ we can agree on," Greg mumbled.

Steven had heard him perfectly, but he said "huh?" anyway. He would have turned around to look if the brush wasn't just behind him.

"Nothing!" he said. There was a splash of something wet hitting the newspaper and Steven glanced down and saw a line of silver running across it - he guessed his dad had held up his hands apologetically, forgetting he was still holding the brush. "Anyway, don't worry about Pearl. I'm sure she'll come around."

"You really think so?"

"Absolutely! She just wants you safe, that's all."

Steven didn't protest that he was a Crystal Gem too, even though part of him kind of wanted to. He just continued staring out at the sunset, the pinks and oranges spreading across the sky, and he didn't really feel much like arguing any more. Even the feeling of the brush and the dye in his hair were staring to feel like something happening far away.

"Annnnnnd..." said Greg, taking the brush away while also taking Steven back to reality. "Well, it's not quite _ta-da._ We still have to sit here. Not moving. For a half-hour."

Steven sniffed again. The hair dye felt like earthworms were crawling around in his hair, but the smell was somehow worse - it was like what he imagined oil must smell like, a bunch of weird chemicals he didn't know the name of.

"A... a half-hour?"

He heard the rubber _snap_ of Greg removing his gloves.

"Yep. That's pretty low, actually - pretty sure I've done longer."

With a _hup,_ Greg hopped over the side of the van, sitting on the edge next to him. He looked out towards the sunset.

"But hey, at least it's a nice night for it, right?"

Steven nodded. "Yeah. It is."

"Tell you what," said Greg, smiling at him. "How about, while we wait, I tell you about the first time I dyed my hair?"

Steven _ooh_ ed, raising his fists in front of himself excitably _,_ an uncomfortable squelch coming from his hair when he lifted his shoulders.

"Is it about mom?!"

"Haha, no," Greg laughed, staring back out at the sunset, resting his chin on his hands. "I wasn't dyeing my hair much by then. But it _was_ about a girl with crazy hair - I guess I was trying to impress her or something."

Steven scooted closer, staring up at his father.

"The problem is, I didn't know the first thing about how to dye hair. So..."

* * *

Steven hummed as he stood on his tip-toes in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at himself.

"I'm turning heads and I'm stopping traffic..." he sang-muttered as he applied a pink blush to his cheeks. "When I pose, they scream, and when I joke... hmm."

He turned his head this way and that, looking over his handiwork. The eyeliner, the lashes, and now the blush in the shape of hearts... he raised his hands. Even his nails, red with glittery yellow stars, were very cute.

But it still felt like it was... missing something. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

What else did beautiful pop stars do to look good? He had the make up down, and a cute purse, and his skirt swooshed when he spun around in a way that made him giggle... there was jewelry, but he didn't have any of that yet, and he was reluctant to get his ears pierced (especially since Pearl would have a fit if she knew someone was poking holes in him)...

Oh, he thought, suddenly feeling foolish for not having thought of it earlier. Hair dye!

It'd been a long time since he'd tried dyeing his hair and, well, that was because he'd hated it. Between the smell, the waiting, the feeling of it on your scalp, and did he mention the smell, it had been _awful_. And, since he'd ended up looking like an old man for all the trouble, something he already hadn't wanted to ever do again, he'd spent the next couple of missions wearing a baseball cap and vowing to never, ever repeat that mistake.

But, as he looked in the mirror, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Wouldn't he look good in a platinum blonde? Or he could go with all the red in his outfit and go for more of a ginger? Or maybe he could do something really wild and make his hair blue, or purple, or even put highlights in it!

"Amethysttttttt!" he called out as he started opening the door to the bathroom, only to find it suddenly come to a stop. There was something really big lying right in the way.

He heard, from the other side of the house, Amethyst's voice yell "Yo!"

"Lion..." he complained to the door, and sure enough, Lion's head peeked around the side. Lion stretched himself out, padding around the corner, letting Steven open the door the rest of the way.

He looked across the house at Amethyst, who was reclining on the couch in front of the window, picking at her teeth with a fingernail. She looked at Steven and gave a quick wave, shooting him a smile.

"Looking good!"

"Thanks!" he called back. Lion started licking his face, smudging his makeup, and Steven laughed, gently pushing him away. Steven started to walk towards Amethyst and Lion followed, walking around him and nudging his head against him. "Hey, um, do you know anything about hair dye?"

Amethyst stopped picking at her teeth. She sat up, her eyes widening and a massive grin coming to her face.

"Oh, shhhhh... shoot!" she said. "You wanna dye your hair?"

"Is that a yes?"

Steven went to sit down on the couch next to her, holding his purse close. Lion sat down in front of them, laying on the floor, and Amethyst shrugged, rolling her shoulders.

"Well, sorta," she explained. "Most of the time, I just do this."

A bright light surrounded her hair. When it dissipated, her hair had become a very, very dark black, so dark it almost seemed more than a massive, wavy hole in space than hair.

Steven gasped, covering his hands with his mouth. "Pretty!"

"Eh." Amethyst's hair glowed again, returning to its normal violet color. She looked away, scratching the back of her head. "It's cool and all, but I prefer this color."

A dark blush came to her cheeks.

"Anyway, Vidalia, uh, taught me how to dye somebody's hair the" - she made finger quotes - "'real' way. That's funner anyway. Well, until the part that takes _forever."_

"And it reeks too!" Steven agreed.

"Haha, yeah, it totally does!" Amethyst grinned. "Anyway, you know what color you want?"

Steven shook his head. "No. I can't choose."

"Well, you could do what I just did and just shapeshift it. You got a mirror in that thing?"

Steven did. He opened his purse and took out his hand mirror, the one he always carried with him alongside his lip gloss (Steven firmly believed you never knew when a hand mirror and lip gloss could come in handy). He handed the mirror to Amethyst, quietly glad she'd asked him for one instead of just turning her head into one or something, and she held it open in front of him.

He looked back at himself, his slightly smeared makeup from Lion and furrowed brows, then back over to Amethyst. "This isn't going to turn my hair into some kind of monster, right?"

"Who knows? YOLO or whatever," she replied, scratching her neck. "Anyway, it's just like any other kind of shapeshifting. You know, shake it out."

Steven wasn't reassured at all, but he squeezed his eyes shut anyway. _Blonde hair, blonde hair..._

He heard the shimmering noise that came with shapeshifting and opened his eyes again. A single thin stripe of hair, dead center above his forehead, had turned blonde. He grinned at himself. Success!

"Hey, good job!" said Amethyst, giving him a thumbs up. "So that's what you want?"

Steven made an mmm sound, nodding. It looked nicer than he'd thought it would - he'd save the weirder hair colors for later, if he ended up liking this.

"You gonna go pick it up?" Amethyst continued.

Steven froze, glancing outside the window towards the beach, the path leading away from the temple to Beach City proper. He hugged his purse, pulling his legs, covered in striped stockings, up towards himself.

Amethyst raised an eyebrow.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" he said, looking back at her and smiling. "Could you... go get it for me?"

Amethyst looked out the window, putting a hand over her eyes and squinting where he'd been looking, but when she didn't seem to see anything, she shrugged.

"Uh, sure," she said. "I don't see why not."

Steven opened his purse, taking out a ten dollar bill.

"And please don't steal it."

"Yeah, yeah," Amethyst agreed, taking it and hopping off the couch, over Lion. Lion merely raised his head and yawned. "Jail sucks anyway."

* * *

 

Steven sat on a pile of newspapers in the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his neck. Steven had insisted on the towel and the newspapers, not to mention taking the time to change into an old outfit, remembering what his dad had done. Amethyst, on the other hand, had started ripping the box to the hair dye open before she'd even walked in the door.

Now Amethyst was sitting on a stool behind him, sliding her fingers into his hair, rubbing his scalp. She hadn't bothered with the gloves.

Her hands were surprisingly gentle - they felt a lot more soothing than the brush had.

"So Vidalia taught you how to do this?"

Amethyst froze for a moment before returning to what she was doing

"Oh yeah. I used to do it for her, like, allllllll the time. She was always trying new looks, you know?"

"Not really," Steven said, cheerfully.

"Oh, I guess you wouldn't, huh? Well, yeah." Steven winced when one of Amethyst's fingers caught on a tangle in his hair, but she noticed and started rubbing the dye in from a different angle. "She used to be a real rebel... before she became a mom and all."

Steven tilted his head back up at her. "Like my mom?"

"I was gonna say 'like Pearl,'" said Amethyst, grinning. "But, yeah, that works."

Amethyst took a dye-covered hand out of Steven's hair and he turned to watch as she scratched the back of her head, frowning - he wondered if she'd have a patch of blonde hair there later.

"Hey, though, I was wondering..."

"Hmm?"

"I mean, since you mentioned your mom and all," Amethyst went on. "Why this color? Why not, you know... pink?"

Steven gulped. A part of him immediately shouted at him not to answer, to put on a smile and come up with some excuse... but there was another part of him, a little quieter than the first, that thought _It's OK. Amethyst will understand._

For once, he listened to the quieter voice.

"It's... complicated," Steven sighed, staring down at the newspapers on the floor, the headlines talking about mysterious events like giant footprints and disappearing oceans in Beach City next to coupons for movie tickets or ads for Fish Stew Pizza.

Amethyst continued rubbing her hands in Steven's hair. "It's OK, dude. I get complicated, trust me."

Steven shook his head. "No, it's fine. I mean, I thought about it, but..."

He felt his hands tighten into fists, but Amethyst continued massaging his scalp, and he relaxed again.

"Everyone always expects me to be Mom, you know? Even you get that way sometimes."

Amethyst stopped what she was doing and hissed under her breath.

"Eesh, yeah... I'm sorry."

"It's OK. I know you don't mean anything by it. It's just..." Steven felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "I never got to meet my mom. I have no idea what she was _really_ like. So how am I supposed to _be_ her?"

Steven took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Dyeing my hair pink, wearing the kind of clothes she wore, it all feels, I don't know... like saying 'I give up,' I guess. It feels like I'm trying to... _actually_ become her. Does that make sense?"

For a moment, Amethyst didn't respond, and Steven momentarily worried he'd said a lot of wrong things. But then he felt a pair of wet, dye-covered arms wrap around his chest, and a head covered in violet hair rest against his shoulder. Amethyst pulled him closer, hugging him tightly.

"I got you," she said quietly, and now Steven started to really cry, thick, messy tears. Amethyst squeezed him closer, so close he could hardly breathe. "But, you know, you're _not_ her. Whatever people might want you to be, or you think people want you to be, it's all... it's all _bull,_ OK?"

"So you..." Steven sniffled. "You don't wish I was my mom?"

" _Hell_ no," Amethyst replied. "Your mom was cool, yeah, and I miss her sometimes, but... I'd never _replace_ you. Because you're cool too. You got that?"

Steven nodded rapidly, causing even more tears to roll down his cheeks.

"I care about you, Steven," Amethyst said.

"Thanks, Amethyst," he replied, sniffling.

"Now, we gonna finish this or what? Because this stuff stinks."

Steven looked down at the newspapers on the floor and the purple arms and hands, covered in blonde hair dye, wrapped around his chest.

"Actually..." he said, smiling at nobody. "Could we stop?"

Amethyst let him go and, free from her grip, he stood up from the pile of newspapers. He wiped the tears from his face and attempted to brush off his clothes, until he realized he couldn't get hair dye off with his hands.

"Huh?" she said.

He turned around, shaking his somewhat sticky, probably smelly fingers before raising his arms apologetically.

"I just... changed my mind," he said, feeling more than a little awkward. "Sorry."

Amethyst stood up herself, raising both her arms and stretching out her body.

"I mean, that seems kind of lame, but it's your choice, dude," she said. "I ain't gonna stop you. Or... not stop, I guess."

Steven swallowed. Somehow, he felt like this wasn't how it was supposed to go. He almost wished she would do that, that she'd protest, but instead, she started to walk out of the bathroom.

"Later, man," she said on her way out, reaching out to tussle his hair but then stopping mid-way and shrugging.

And then she was gone.

She left the door open. Steven closed it behind her and, with a sigh, went to start the shower.

And once the hair dye and the heart-shaped blush and the eyeliner and everything else had gone swirling down the drain, he walked out of the shower, climbed up to his bedroom, and changed into one of his several dozen pairs of red star print shirts and blue pants.

When he looked down at the rest of the house below, he saw that Amethyst had gone - she was nowhere to be seen. Lion, on the other hand, hadn't moved from his spot in front of the window, except to lift his head and stare at Steven as he passed.

Steven found himself drawn to him, so he trudged down the stairs and slouched towards the couch in front of the window. Lion lifted his head as Steven approached, so Steven lazily reached out a hand and ruffled his pink mane. It was enough - Lion started purring, a deep, heavy sound that reverberated through the floorboards.

Connie had told him once that lions didn't normally purr. Lion was weird that way.

Steven didn't really sit down on the couch as much as he let himself fall backwards onto it with a _whump._ Lion replied by climbing up onto the couch next to him, sitting his head inches from Steven's face. He smelled a lot like fish, and his continued purring was making the entire couch rumble, but Steven couldn't be bothered to get up and go somewhere else.

Once it was apparent to Lion that he wasn't going to get petted again, and after several attempts at fruitlessly headbutting Steven's hand, Lion walked around in circles on the couch cushion until he was comfortable, then laid down with a yawn.

Neither of them moved from that spot for the rest of the night.

* * *

When Steven, laying on the floor of her apartment and resting her head in her girlfriend Connie's lap, had said "Connie, do you think I should dye my hair?", she hadn't expected such a _reaction._ But Connie had gasped like Steven had told her she'd bought tickets to The Spirit Morph Saga: On Ice, practically thrown Steven off of herself, and rushed over to her dependable old laptop to look up how to dye hair _properly._

She hadn't even asked what color Steven wanted or how they were going to get it.

But, one drive to the local shopping mart later, Steven had in her hands what she'd decided on before she'd even asked Connie about it - a box of _pastel pink_ dye.

And, several hours of Connie doing careful research later ("you're not going to poison me, promise" "oh my god, can that happen?"), Steven was sitting on a stool over a pile of newspapers in their dining room, wearing one of her father's old concert t-shirts and an old pair of bluejeans. Connie was right behind her, a box of hair dye, a pile of tools and supplies, and a laptop with a step-by-step hair dyeing guide all on the table next to her.

"Are you _absolutely_ sure you want to do this?" she said, turning away from the laptop. "I keep reading it's not good for your hair... and it's permanent, so it'll be really hard to undo once we're done."

"I'm sure, I'm sure!" Steven replied. "Geez, Connie... you've asked me, like, ten times."

"I just don't want you to do anything you'll regret! And are you sure you don't want to have a professional do it instead of, well, me?" Steven watched her cringe. "Ugh, I really do sound like my mother."

Steven turned around on the stool and reached out to her girlfriend, placing her large, heavy hands on Connie's shoulders.

"Connie, it's OK. I know you just care about me a lot," she said, smiling down at her, and Connie smiled back. "And that's why I want _you_ to do it. I trust you."

Connie nodded. "OK, Steven."

Steven grinned, then turned back around so that her back, and her long mane of curly black hair, in ringlets that went down to her waist, was facing her.

"Well, for starters, it says I have to comb your hair out and separate it into different sections," she said. "And, um, that could... take a while."

"Take all the time you need!" Steven replied, feeling inwardly disappointed that she was too tall to kick her feet over the side of the stool now.

* * *

After setting the egg timer she'd set down on the table earlier, Connie wiped her brow and sat down on the floor, in one of the few sections of newspaper that wasn't covered in pink hair dye. She curled her legs up to her chest and let out a deep sigh.

"And now we sit here for forty-five minutes."

"Well, I'm sure we can figure out something to do while we wait," said Steven, hopping down from the stool. She sat right down next to Connie, not even caring that she was sitting in hair dye - she figured that was what these old bluejeans were for, after all.

"Like what?" said Connie.

"Like... this!" Steven wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's shoulders, leaned in close, shut her eyes tight, and tried to plant a kiss on Connie's cheek. But to Steven's surprise, when she moved forward, she felt a pair of familiar-feeling lips on her own - Connie must have picked just that moment to turn around and face her.

Steven didn't dare move. She opened her eyes and blinked, and Connie was there, her eyes open, her cheeks a slight hint of red, her lips awkwardly pressed against Steven's.

Connie broke the kiss and blushed deeper, tucking her dark hair behind her ear.

"Mwah?" Steven tried, and Connie giggled, bringing a hand up to her mouth.

"Well, _that_ sounds fun. But, um, maybe not right now." She made a face, sticking her tongue out. "Your hair stinks."

Steven sniffed. It definitely did - there was even more of that awful chemical smell than any of the other times she'd dyed her hair, in fact. Probably because there was so much more of it now.

"Oh, geez. Sorry."

"It's OK," said Connie. "It's not your fault."

Wordlessly, she scooted closer to Steven, resting her head against her bicep. And Steven understood - that didn't mean they couldn't just lay like this, for a while, relaxing on the pile of newspapers, enjoying the quiet, falling asleep on each other.

To Steven, that sounded like the best thing in the world.

"Wow, you really _do_ stink..." Connie murmured.

Steven smiled. "Connie."

"What? It's true."

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, after they were both woken up by the egg timer, Connie got up to fetch the hand mirror from the table. Steven didn't have to guess what her reaction to the dye job was, because when she brought it over, the uneven ear-to-ear smile on her face said it all.

She held it up to Steven, looking even more like she could barely contain her glee, and Steven looked back into it and saw herself - her chubby but slightly more well-defined cheeks, her thick black sideburns, her beard stubble.

And, of course, her _hair._ Bright, bright cotton candy pink, so pink it was like she had shapeshifted it to be the ideal of pink, all the way down to the ends of her ringlets. She turned her head this way and that, reaching up to touch it, to confirm that it really was her hair she was looking at.

It, undeniably, looked like Rose.

Steven felt her shoulders shake, the tears on the verge of falling, even before Connie lowered the mirror. Her eager smile had sunk into a worried frown.

"Steven?"

"I'm so happy," she said quietly. "I'm so happy!"

"Oh, thank goodness," Connie said, letting out a deep sigh.

Steven grinned at her while the tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn't stop herself from smiling _or_ crying.

"It's like I told you... I thought if I wore dresses... if I dyed my hair... if I was a girl... I thought I wouldn't be _me_ anymore. I thought I was just being my mom!"

"And you're not," Connie replied, setting the mirror down on the table and racing over to wrap her arms around Steven's neck. "You're just Steven, no matter what."

Steven wrapped her arms around Connie's waist pulling her into an even tighter embrace, chest to chest.

"Just like you told me," she said.

"That's right," said Connie, her voice cracking just slightly. Steven felt her tremble. "Just like I told you."

"...And I look really pretty."

Connie leaned back from Steven's chest to look her in the eyes. Steven saw the tears falling down her cheeks too and felt a jolt of horror - but then he relaxed. Connie was just feeling the same way she was.

"You are _so_ pretty," Connie said, smiling. Then she leaned forward, planting a quick kiss on Steven's lips. Then another. Then another. "So... so... so pretty!"

"Connnnnnie!" Steven said, giggling. "Stoppppppp!"

"Not until you stop being pretty," Connie replied, before kissing her girlfriend again. This time, she didn't break the kiss - she kept her lips pressed against Steven's. Eventually, belatedly, Steven came to the realization they were _really_ kissing, and she started to kiss her back, raising her arms to Connie's neck to pull her as close to her as she possibly could.

"Hold on," Connie said suddenly, after who knew how many minutes.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing." Steven watched as Connie climbed up to her feet, went over to the table, and picked up the egg timer. With a _click,_ she set it. "Don't worry about me."

That said, Connie went back to Steven, sat in her lap, laid back across her torso, and kissed her.

"...What was that for?" Steven asked, blinking.

"Well, we've got to stop _eventually,_ right?" Connie grinned.


	2. Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie tries a new look too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra scene after the end! Forgot to write it into the fic initially but, after going back and writing it, it felt better as it's own thing.

"We got some left over, right?" said Steven, laying on her back in the pile of newspapers and petting her girlfriend's hair.

"Yeah," Connie said from on top of Steven's stomach, yawning. "I mean, I think so. Why?"

"You should try it!"

Connie jolted up onto Steven's lap, her eyes wide. Steven followed her.

"What?" said Connie, waving her hands before bringing them down firmly, palms flat. "No. Absolutely not. No."

"Aww," Steven said, sighing. But she knew she shouldn't press - even if she couldn't hide her disappointment, she knew the mature thing to do would be to just accept that Connie wasn't interested and move on.

Steven, rarely one to listen to her own advice, took two seconds before she added, "Why not? You'd look so pretty!"

"Because my mom would _literally_ kill me," Connie replied, burying her face in her hands, so her voice became a rushed mumble. "I mean, not literally, like, figuratively, but she would _definitely_ kill me. Metaphorically."

"Connie," Steven said, in a Connie-you're-rambling tone. Connie peeked at her between her fingers and Steven motioned to herself. "Remember when you told her you were dating _me?_ "

"That's a good point," Connie sighed. "Not to mention when you came out as trans..."

"...And you said if something happened, you'd fight off your mom with my mom's sword?"

"And all she did was tell you how to get prescriptions for hormones."

Steven threw her hands up. "So it'll be fine! Besides, you're a mature, grown-up lady. So what if your mom doesn't like it?"

"I just..." Connie rubbed at her arm. "I don't know."

Steven leaned forward, hands clasped together, and unleashed the most watery, wide-eyed puppy dog stare she could muster. "Pleeeeeeeease?"

Connie took one look at her and sputtered out a laugh. "OK, OK. Fine. But that's your quota on puppy dog eyes for this year."

Steven grinned. "Deal!"

With another, fonder sigh, Connie smiled and climbed up to her feet. She sat down on the stool where Steven had been sitting, and Steven got to her feet as well, the mostly dried hair dye causing the newspapers to stick to her legs as she stood up.

Steven took one look at the pile of hair dyeing tools and the little black cup, still with the dye brush and some pink dye left in it, and gulped.

"Don't worry, Steven. You can do this," Connie said, smiling at her over her shoulder. "I trust you."

Steven made an OK sign with her hand, sticking her tongue out at her, and Connie giggled, which was more reassuring to Steven than anything.

And, an hour later, after the testing and the combing and the lightening and the application and the waiting, it was Steven's turn to take the hand mirror and show her girlfriend the results of her handiwork.

Steven never managed to pick the mirror up off the table. Instead, she took one look at Connie's soft, shy smile and her very, very pink hair, blushed a shade of red deep enough to set off her own hair, and buried her face in her hands.

"Um, Steven?" Connie tried, but it would took Steven five minutes before she was able to speak coherently enough again to call her beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend [Ivy](ivy-snowy.tumblr.com) for helping me with this fic!


End file.
